Possessions review 2005
Network Rail needs to restrict access to the network to carry out many of its maintenance and renewals activities. These restrictions of access are referred to as possessions or, in cases with very long durations, blockades. Possessions are considered to be ‘disruptive’ if they impact on the running of passenger or freight operators’ normal timetabled services. Schedule 4 of franchised passenger operators’ track access contracts provides for arrangements under which Network Rail pays compensation to train operators when it takes possession of the network to carry out engineering work.
At the time of the access charges review 2003 (ACR2003) final conclusions ORR was aware that Network Rail was considering moving towards a more radical possessions strategy in a way that could potentially lead to greater efficiency savings than the 31% unit cost efficiencies assumed under the review. However, ORR did not include an estimate of the additional productivity that such a strategy might deliver because the information required to conduct a detailed assessment of the approach was not available at that time. Instead, the ACR2003 final conclusions provided for a possessions review to be undertaken if Network Rail proposed to change materially its possessions strategy.
Network Rail is now seeking to implement a revised approach to possessions planning (which it calls Efficient Engineering Access (EEA)). EEA includes taking longer night-time possessions together with more mid-week blockades. Network Rail has said that this will result in a reduction in the overall resources (in terms of plant and labour) required to deliver a given amount of work and would also lead to a reduction in the unit cost of deploying people and an improvement in work quality.
ORR has therefore initiated a possessions review which will address the following areas:
- an assessment of whether Network Rail’s revised possessions strategy is efficient from a whole-industry perspective and hence is compliant with Condition 7 of Network Rail’s network licence;
- Network Rail’s processes for planning and mitigating the impact of possessions such as the provision of accurate and timely information on capability and capacity of alternative routes;
- the extent to which EEA would generate efficiencies in excess of those assumed by ACR2003 and the corresponding amount by which access charges should be reduced to reflect those efficiencies;
- whether the existing Schedule 4 regime in franchised passenger train operators’ track access agreements may need to be modified to ensure that the compensation payable by Network Rail properly reflects the effects of the revised strategy on train operators’ businesses;
- the impact of EEA on freight operating companies; and
- the need for cross-industry cooperation in possessions planning.
Timescales
The review started formally with the publication of the The possessions review: initial consultation document on 24 March 2005. ORR intends to publish its emerging views in July 2005 and final conclusions in December 2005.
Documentation
The following documents are available for download as PDF files:
